Scotland and Ireland

This past week I was fortunate enough to spend traveling around to Scotland and Ireland. First I took a bus to Edinburgh to see Liz, Noah, Ariel, and Katie from Shepard, which was a lot of fun. Ariel was hosting a Hannukuh party so I got to meet a bunch of Edinburgh students. Also, I played my first ever game of dreidel, which I almost won!

The next day I met up with my two Oxford friends Kaitlin and Max, and we went on a day trip to the Highlands. We went by bus across the country into Scotland's snow-capped mountains. We were lucky to go on a really clear day, so you could see for miles. Our tour guide did a great job telling us the stories of the Scots and all their violence. However, the best part was taking a boat across Loch Ness. It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. On the boat, they showed us the sonar machine that detects the massive creatures swimming around underneath us. They showed us a picture of the sonar of the largest creature they have detected - it is 38 feet long and swims at 40km/hr. You might think that it was just a glitch in the machine, but he has detected the same creature 19 times in the past year alone. I will leave it to you to decide whether the Loch Ness monster is real!

The next day we went into Edinbugh to see the city. We saw the cathedral, statues of David Hume and Adam Smith, and the Edinburgh Castle (though the inside of the castle was closed due to the snow). The city was especially cool at night time, because they have a German-style Christmas market and tons of Christmas decorations. The only bad part about Edinburgh was the inordinate amount of snow there - the worst snow in 47 years according to the newspaper. They had gotten about a foot of snow the week before we arrived, and they got a few more inches after we got there. Our hostel was outside of the city, so it was a nightmare trying to get into town - none of the city buses were running and the taxis were in really high demand. Also, our bus to Glasgow was cancelled due to the snow, so when we finally left Edinburgh we had to catch a train.

We were only in Glasgow for a little over a day, but it was still really nice. There was a fresh layer of snow on the ground, and it made the city look pretty. We saw the University of Glasgow and Kelvingrove Park the first day. The next day we took a tour bus around the city because it was so cold (around 20 degrees) that walking everywhere was almost unbearable. The architecture in Glasgow was really interesting - very modern. My favourite part was the Winter Garden, which was a huge tropical garden inside a glass room. Overall, it was a cool city, even if we were only there for a short time.

The worst experience we had on the trip was getting to the airport in Glasgow. We asked someone in the train station which bus to take, and he actually directed us to the wrong airport. Once we got there, we couldn't find our airline, and when asking someone at British Airlines where we could find RyanAir she said, "You're in the wrong airport. The one you need to go to is over an hour and a half away!" I stared blankly at her for a couple seconds with my mouth wide open and then I started to walk away and she yelled after me "You're welcome!!" while laughing. It was horrible. As it turned out, the airport was closer than she said and our flight was delayed 20 minutes, so we got to the airport in just enough time to make the flight. It was awesome.

The last leg of our trip was Dublin, Ireland. We went on a free tour which was given by a native Dubliner who is studying history at University, and it was incredible! It lasted three hours but he kept our attention so well the entire time. It climaxed in his speech about the fight for Irish independence which was really passionate. He also explained to us that Dublin is the pub capital of the world, and that the Temple Bar district is the pub capital of Dublin. That night, we went to the Temple Bar to experience the culture, and the live music was great, even though there was no traditional Irish music. Instead, they were playing CCR and  Lynyrd Skynyrd covers, which made me a little homesick and excited to go home this week. Here are some pictures from the trip.

Loch Ness

 The Highlands

Edinburgh

Trying to find a bus into Edinburgh

Glasgow University

Live music in Dublin

Now I am back in Oxford for a couple days before I go to Baltimore for Christmas. Can't wait to see everyone!

Thanksgiving and Christmas

Not to sound critical, but the British really don't understand Thanksgiving. It's kind of funny. Some people think that we are celebrating our triumph over the Native Americans, and others think that we are celebrating our high obesity rate. I think that if they had a chance to come to Thanksgiving with my family they would understand. 

I went to a Thanksgiving dinner at one of the halls at Oxford, and it just wasn't the same. The evening started out with champagne and servers walking around the room offering hors d'oeuvres, which was funny enough. Before we went through the buffet, we were warned that "it's not like an American buffet where you just get to eat everything - make sure to only take the vegetarian entree if you signed up for it!" I think they were afraid we would eat too much. Fortunately, we got a good amount of food. We had turkey, ham, gravy, fried potatoes, brussel sprouts, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, and pecan pie for dessert. I know that doesn't sound like very much by American Thanksgiving standards, but compared to my other meals here, I was grateful for the variety. It didn't feel very much like Thanksgiving without the family, but it was still nice. The best part of the evening was when two British guys thanked the Americans for allowing them to celebrate Thanksgiving with us by singing John Denver's "Country Roads." It was great.

Since Oxford term ends December 3rd, they start celebrating Christmas in Oxford the last week of November. The official beginning of the Christmas season was on Friday November 27 with the Oxford Christmas lighting. It reminded me a lot of Who-ville because there was a parade of thousands of kids with lanterns and some of the kids were playing in a marching band. The whole city was packed with people. There were food stands everywhere selling sausages and mince pies and other stuff, and there were also some carnival rides. Eventually, they counted down and lit up all the street decorations and the Oxford Christmas tree.

This week I finished my last essay of term which was a GREAT feeling. The rest of this week I will be playing in Christmas concerts and doing other festive stuff (as well as trying to find a summer internship...). On Friday, I am heading up to Scotland to visit some friends, which should be a lot of fun - I'm especially looking forward to my first ever Hannukuh party! I will be going with two of my friends from Oxford, and in the 10 days before I leave for Baltimore, we will be seeing Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dublin!

 Here is the Christmas parade with the band and the lanterns in the background.

Here is the St. Anne's Christmas tree in our quad.

Here is a picture of Oxford I took this week from the top of the University Church of St. Mary

Can't wait to see everyone - I will be back in Baltimore December 14!

Burning People Alive and Breaking World Records

Hi Everyone!

The past couple weeks have been OK. Two weeks ago I got a pretty bad cold, and I immediately realized that this academic system doesn't allow for that, at least during term time. Fortunately, I am all better now, so I will try to impress my tutors a lot the rest of term! It's funny that I'm thinking of impressing them, because I don't think that impressing my professors would have crossed my mind last year. I noticed when I first got here that everyone talked to impress, and now I know why - when you meet with your professors 1-on-1 every week, there is a lot of pressure to impress them with your knowledge. It is especially important for visiting students because our professors determine our grades subjectively at the end of each term.

Last Saturday we went to a carnival for the Bonfire Night (aka Guy Fawkes Night) celebration. They had fireworks (that would be considered pretty bad by American standards), they had some carnival rides, and then they had a HUGE bonfire where they were burning a wooden replica of Guy Fawkes! I was shocked that a town with a history of burning innocent people alive would celebrate the capital punishment of Guy Fawkes in such a grotesque way. But it happened.

We left the carnival and had to find somewhere to eat (the dining hall isn't open on weekends), so we went to an amazing Spanish Tapas restaurant in Cowley, one of the neighborhoods outside the city. After days (or maybe even weeks) of being disappointed meal after meal, it reminded me what it's like to have a really great meal. The stereotype about British food is true - it makes McDonald's look pretty good. Note that this is coming from someone who has never complained about a dining hall before. I think we are going to start cooking in the dorm kitchen more often because it is relatively inexpensive, and you have a lot more to choose from by buying your own food.

About 1 in 10 days is sunny, so yesterday was great even though it was really cold (can't believe it hit 70 in Evanston the same day!). I biked down to the Iffley Road Sports Complex, where Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile. There wasn't much to see, since the track has obviously been redone since he ran there in the 1950s, but it was still cool to go. Also, I checked out their sports fields, and they were kind of sad compared to American schools. It looked like Rugby was the biggest spectator sport, and the stands fit about as many people as the Towson High School football "stadium." University-level sports here just don't matter. In fact, most professional sports players drop out of school as soon as their talent is realized (around age 14-16). I think that's why University sports are so bad - none of the talent actually goes to college.

 Here is the hall where Harry Potter was filmed! I ate there.

Here is the bonfire and the effigy.

This is the Tapas Restaurant and my friends Max and Clare.

That's all I have for now. Wish me luck - I have a concert tomorrow! It's going to be awesome!!

Learning Philosophy and Playing Music at Oxford (plus pics!)

Great news! I just got back my Week 3 essays and both of my tutors indicated that I am making good progress. This is really encouraging because I was worried about how I measure up to other Oxford students. However, it was silly for me to be so worried about that - not because I am as smart as capable as other Oxford students, but because competition takes a back seat in their education system. Instead of regular midterms and exams, they give you personal attention and focus on your improvement. I actually asked my tutor if he could grade my essays when he is reading/commenting on them, and he said he didn't really want to. He explained that everyone takes time to get used to the tutorial system and everyone gets better the more they study. It's definitely intimidating to present your work to your professors each week, but I think the system is less stressful overall. The other main difference from the American system is that they specialize much more here. We only take 2 classes per term (both in your major), but you go into more depth in those classes. At NU, the amount of effort people spend on studying for distribution classes seems to get everyone stressed without much added benefit. You can always go to lectures for classes you are not taking if you want to make up for the fact that you're not taking distros - I went to a really good lecture about the US Presidency and Obama today. I am not sure whether I am ready to say that this system is better, but it definitely has advantages.

Another great part about Oxford is the music. I am in the Oxford University Orchestra, which is AMAZING - the best orchestra I've ever been in. They play professional repertoire (I heard they played Rite of Spring last year!?) and they have professional conductors. It makes for an intense experience though - 3 hour rehearsals twice a week, and I am sitting next to a really talented music major. Another exciting opportunity here is the chamber music! I have met some other string/piano players in college, so we are probably going to get together to play some music for fun. Also, there are recitals in the college every once in awhile in which we can perform. The last awesome opportunity they have here is a music competition in which the winners get scholarships for music lessons. I've heard it isn't that competitive and I have a decent shot at getting some money, so I wish me luck! I am really excited to get involved in the Oxford music scene.

Last thing - we've gotten really lucky with the weather lately (sorry about the hurricane-force winds Chicago!), so I got some great pictures around Oxford. Check them all out here - Oxford Pictures. Here are some pictures from the album:

St. Anne's Quad (taken from my room)

 Tom's Tower - Christ Church College

Miss you all!

MT Week 1

Michaelmas Term (which is named after the feast of St. Michael the Archangel - if you were wondering) started last week on October 10th. You might be really jealous because school in the states starts about a month and a half before that, but I can assure you that we don't have it easy. On the first day of term, I was required to give a presentation to my tutor and a 4th year student, and on the second day of term I had an essay due, which I had to read aloud to my tutor. It was intense. Also, weekends don't exist at Oxford. I didn't believe them when they first told us that, but it's true - I have essays due every Saturday and Monday this term, so weekends are actually the busiest part of the week.

Wednesday, after finishing my tutorials for the week, some of my friends and I decided to go to the law society meet-and-greet downtown. We all had signed up for their email list at the Fresher's Fair, and it sounded like a good way to meet British students. We dressed up in really fancy clothes and walked downtown about half an hour early to make sure we wouldn't be turned away. When we got close, we noticed lots of people dressed up walking in the wrong direction. As it turned out, they reached their maximum capacity of five hundred people two hours before the party even started. It was a really funny scene - hundreds of very well-dressed students were roaming the streets of Oxford, not sure where to go or what to do with themselves.

On Saturday was the matriculation ceremony, which is a big deal here. The whole University emphasizes exclusivity, so to them the process of being initiated as students is just as important as graduating. Since we are visiting students we didn't officially matriculate, but we did dress up in our subfusc and take part in all the St. Anne's festivities! Subfusc is their official dress that is required for all exams. For guys it is a black suit with a white shirt and white bow tie. We also have a robe that goes over our suit that has tails - it's hard to describe. Anyway, it was a lot of fun.

Fresher's Week!

Hey everyone,

After two weeks of orientation I have finally found time to get together my blog for this year. I spent one week in London with the study abroad program and one week in Oxford for Fresher's Week!

Fresher's Week entailed an inordinate number of lectures where I learned one thing - Oxford people like to talk. Some of them like to talk because they are able to grasp the audience's attention and get a couple of laughs along the way. Others merely want to show off their intellectual abilities. Still others want to tell you to remember to set your alarm clock because your mum isn't going to wake you up in the morning anymore.

Fortunately, there were lots of fun events in the evening that got us through the week. The Fresher's Dinner was incredible. Everyone dressed up in their nicest clothes and met in the best building on campus for pre-dinner champagne. We mingled with the other students and the tutors before going into the hall for dinner. I had the honor of sitting at high table that night, which is only permitted if you are either a  fellow of the college or their guest. Since we were seated by subject, they chose the PPE (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) students to sit at the high table that night. We then enjoyed a 3-course dinner by candlelight and learned about some of the college's history in a speech from the Principal.

The next night was the consummation of Fresher's Week: the bop. Note that here they don't call them dances or formals - it's simply a bop. The theme of the bop was "Superheroes and Villains" so I just had to wear my superman costume. I got a lot of compliments for my outfit when I was walking downtown, so I think I might have to wear it more often!

More on matriculation, academics, and USA-UK rivalries to come!

To see pictures, go to this link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067046&id=1228590369&l=a947038231